Trophy Tuesday: Seriously

The Republican National Committee has my home address. I'm not sure how this happened, because I can list on one hand the times I've voted for a Republican. And one of those was William Weld - is he even a Republican anymore?

But here we are, with the RNC sending me mailers touting "Republican Census!"

I'm less concerned with how this happened than what I've learned from it.

Though I'm pretty sure it's a prank by someone on my Facebook who doesn't like my anti-Trump rants. 

Or it could be that time I filled out one of those RNC online polls about Trump, but I don't recall putting my correct address in there. 

The RNC has sent me no less than 4 questionnaires about what Trump's agenda should be and how they should best support it. They are very, very, very curious about what I think Trump should focus on.

I guess they already know what they're focusing on -  their big donors' wishes. 

It's like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story, except it's a President's agenda.

The Democrats have never sent me mailers like this.

There are a lot of bold-faced words, exclamation points and mentions of deadlines. It even says "Process Immediately!" in the return envelope corner. It looks EXACTLY like the marketing materials for Publisher's Clearing House.

Not that I ever fell for that stuff  or anything. 

But unlike Publisher's Clearing House, the postage is not prepaid. That's right - those undermining the post office are making you support it instead. I literally cannot recall ever being asked to fill something out by mail and not having a prepaid envelope to return it in. This includes small mid-western wedding invitations, charity solicitations and a poll from a local bakery.

Until I started getting stuff from the RNC.

It's hard to use the word "tacky" in the year 2018, what with the Kardashian empire and all but. . .

The RNC is tacky as hell. 

You'd think a Romney (the chair is Mitt's niece) would know better, wouldn't you? 

Valentine's Day Sucks

I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day.

As a child, I did not like my chocolate with "stuff" in it.

As an adolescent, I did not like never having a boyfriend on Valentine's Day and never getting one of those love carnations in homeroom.

As a college student, I did not like how every restaurant was crowded and over-priced, or how often I heard about how expensive roses are. And then there was the time I got the stomach flu on the way to a supposedly romantic getaway, so we spent the weekend at my parents' house instead.

And nothing was more awkward than dating during Valentine's Day season as a young adult. Or not dating, as I eventually decided to do.

In other words, I've almost always had sucky Valentine's Days.  And I can't help but think about all the people out there who are having sucky Valentine's Day each year. 

But I swear that's not the only reason I think V-Day sucks.

 I think it sucks because it's bullshit.

It's not that I object to gifts, going out to dinner or flowers as tokens of appreciation.

It's not that I automatically loathe all holidays - you should see me on Christmas.

But I hate the idea that romance is some performative bullshit that must involve flowers, jewelry and sappy cards given on a certain day of the year. Of course, I have weird ideas about what's romantic.

A friend of mine once dated a guy who got her tires rotated and all kinds of car maintenance done for on her birthday, just because he knew how much she hated dealing with all that stuff. I think that's way more romantic than giving her flowers and jewelry (especially if they look like the flowers and jewelry he gave to his last girlfriend on her birthday).

I'm a big fan of being specific in regards to romantic gestures. Which is basically the opposite of Valentine's Day.

I also think nurturing your relationship should happen on the regular, not on the one day that everyone else is doing it.

That's like being grateful for your blessings only on Thanksgiving. Definite recipe for unhappiness. 

I'm cool with Galentine's Day, though. Which was yesterday (coincidentally - or not coincidentally, right, universe? it's my grandma's birthday) but the thing about Galentine's Day is that you can celebrate it tomorrow, too. Or right now.

Maybe I'm Joining A Cult

So one of my tutoring students was reading Hamlet the other night. Except instead of a tired paperback with teeny weeny footnotes to explain all the obscure words, she was reading Spark Notes online. Which translates every line into modern usage.

17 year old me is very jealous of these kids today and their line by line translations. 

Anyway, my student, let's call her Vivian, is easily distracted.

So am I, but I don't talk about that at work. 

I'm trying to keep her focused, but I'm also trying to be cool because she spent the first part of her session doing a college application and her brain is fried. So when she holds up her screen and says, "Does this ad look freaky to you?" I look instead of telling her to get back to work.

In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. 

The ad, which I'm trying desperately to find so I can inflict it upon you guys, is indeed freaky. It's for SparkLife and it has odd looking cartoon characters beckoning us to join SparkLife. Neither Vivian nor I know what SparkLife is at this point. I agree that it does look freaky and mention that it looks like they're recruiting for something like a cult.

The ad was still terrible, though. The characters  looked like what would happen if Mike Judge (of King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead) drew a movie about the perils of Scientology.

Actually, I would watch a Mike Judge movie about Scientology because I think it's ripe for skewering and I really liked Office Space. 

So I encouraged Vivian to keep refreshing her page until the ad went away. But neither one of us could stop thinking about it. Our speculation even distracted my other student, who is usually very dedicated to whatever work he is doing and generally seems slightly annoyed when I try to make too much non-work related conversation with him.

What can I say? I genuinely like talking to all the students. 

I got so obsessed with the weird ad I even gave Vivian the option of starting a graphic horror novel with those characters wooing someone into the cult of Spark Life as part of her learning log. Vivian really likes drawing, so I thought maybe she'd go for it.

I am very good at coming up with novel ideas and terrible at actually writing them. So yes, I gave my idea to Vivian, hoping she'd have more follow through. Plus, she can draw, which I gather is important in graphic novel creation. 

Vivian turned me down because it would be more work than her regular learning log. But she did promise that if she has to write any fiction for school, this is the story she will use.

As Vivian finished her (regular, boring) learning log assignment and my other student promised me that he did not need any help, I had ample time to think. And while I probably could have been doing something useful like reading through the binder of the student who was coming in next, I instead wondered what kind of cult SparkLife could be.

I've since discovered that SparkLife is not a cult, it's the SparkNotes lifestyle blog. And though it's meant for people less than half my age, it's actually rather entertaining. I know this because I just wasted too much time reading, "Classic Literature, Mansplained" and "Shakespeare Plays Summed Up in Pie Charts." 

Wait, maybe it is a cult.

A cult for Harry Potter nerds who think sorting Hamlet characters in Hogwarts houses is a fun idea. I've found my internet home away from home. 

It's not only a cult, it's my cult. 

I mean, this is an actually post on the site:

I wrote a similar post once, that I've since deleted for being too mean.

It's hard to believe I've ever deleted anything, let alone something that was "too mean". But I did. I went through a phase of trying to make this blog one of those blogs I can't stand in the hopes I could make more money from it. I failed miserably. I think I need to rewrite this post. 

Or go write for SparkLife, even though I'll have to lie about my age. 

Now With Even More Weirdness

The preschool is closed this week.

I've actually been enjoying not having to get up and force the children to look presentable and drag them all the way to school. But for some reason sitting around the house watching me blog is not that entertaining for them. So today we went to an indoor play area with some kids from Ironflower's class.

Apparently we were not the only people to have this idea. And as I stood and watched them (yeah, it was so crowded that all the parent chairs were actually being used - the gall) duck under some obnoxious boys blocking their way, I truly thought I would be posting about the traumas of being around other people's children. But the obnoxious boys left, and things were fine.

They were so fine that I was actually able to converse with the other moms. One of whom was surprised to find out that I will not be having a fourth child, because I'm "so calm".

Clearly, she doesn't read my blog. And yes, I'm pretty sure she was serious.

I had my tubes tied when I had ChunkyMonkey, so it would be an act of God for me to have a fourth child. (Note to self: start going to church or temple or something.) There's no way we could handle another child financially or spatially (Spatially doesn't sound right. Possibly I am using it incorrectly. But you know what I mean, right?). Or mentally.

But.

Is it weird that it makes me a little sad?